A:
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Wednesday - February 19, 2014

QUESTION:

Hi,
we live in California, San Bernardino County and would like to know what evergreen trees are safe to plant in our backyard with 2 little dogs being around. I did quite some search online but everybody keeps talking only about plants safe around dogs not trees.
Please please Help!Any answer will be very appreciated!
Thank you!

ANSWER:

The American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) has a Toxic and Non-toxic Plant List – Dogs that includes both woody (trees and shrubs) and herbaceous plants. You can check the list (searching with the botanical name) for evergreen trees you are interested in. The first half of the list is the "Toxic" species; whereas, the second part of the list has the "Non-toxic" species. Here are some native evergreen trees that that are known to grow in San Bernadino County and do NOT appear on the "Toxic" portion of the list:

There are other toxic plant databases that you can check as well. Those are generally focused on toxicity to humans or livestock such as cattle or horses. Use the botanical name to search for the tree in the databases since the common names are not as precise as the botanical names. Here are a few of those:

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